The present invention relates to the field of industrial trucks and, in particular, to a dynamic stability control system for a material handling vehicle having a lifting fork.
One method for improving material handling vehicle stability includes performing a static center-of-gravity (CG) analysis while the vehicle is at rest and limiting vehicle operating parameters (for example, maximum speed and steering angle) accordingly. However, this static calibration does not dynamically account for vehicle motion, changing lift heights, or environmental factors such as the grade of a driving surface.
Other methods for improving vehicle stability common in consumer automobiles include calculating vehicle CG during vehicle movement and employing an anti-lock braking system (ABS) to modify the cornering ability of the vehicle. These prior art methods only consider two-dimensional vehicle movement (forward-reverse and turning) and do not, for example, account for three-dimensional CG changes due to load weights being lifted and lowered while a vehicle is in motion.
It would therefore be desirable to have a method for dynamically maintaining the stability of a material handling vehicle that accounts for vehicle motion and complex CG changes imposed by a load weight.